Slashdot infringing on Microsoft patent #US5819032

Anonymous Coward writes "After reading about Microsoft's successful attempt to patent style sheets, I tried typing the word "Microsoft" into the IBM patent server. It is amazing how many of these bloody things they are generating in the patent office. I selected a patent at random to see how "novel" it was and just by chance I fell on this one. It was filed May 15, 1996. " They have 25 claims with this one patent (mostly related to dragging and dropping comment files in response to articles in online magazines), with each claim being successively more inclusive. The last claim is the killer (the comments in square brackets [] are mine):

25. A subscriber system for use with an electronic magazine that is distributed from a publisher to a subscriber, the subscriber system comprising:

• a computer having a communications port coupled to a back channel to the publisher, a processor, and a display; [like a browser connecting to a web server]
• a graphical user interface executing on the processor to present a magazine screen on the display, the magazine screen containing at least one article box indicative of a magazine article; and [a browser displaying a web page]
• the graphical user interface being configured to relate time within a publishing period for the magazine to the article boxes so that when a user manipulates the graphical user interface to selectively identify different times within the publishing period, ones of the article boxes are added and removed from the screen to demonstrate which articles were published at which times within the publishing period. [clicking back and forth between back issues of Slashdot]

Comments

Why wasn't this posted?

[edgy]

I submitted this one, and I think it's VERY relevant.

According to the Arcana Mailing List the culture in the U.S. Patent office calls for approving more and more patents, and they're already approving 80% of patent submissions. Here's a cool excerpt from these E-mails from people who've worked for the patent office:

> This needs to be made clear to more people. The Patent Office is heavily
>biased towards rewarding examiners who allow a lot, and it is creating a
>culture to match. Unfortunately, our 'customers' are collectively paying
>the higher costs of confusion and legal help to sort the whole mess out.